Staying a few more days...

This week has been fairly uneventful, which is good for Noah, but bad for all you 2000 action-seeking people who checked the blog since I wrote last... (or maybe it is just my mom and my grandma checking 1000 times each, lol) We did get some surprise tickets to the Canucks game last night so that was fun.  Thank you Joann Malhotra, we had a hoot, and the seats were great (row 11!)!  We also had a bit of a Grey Cup party here at RMH: we invited my cousin Meagan and her boyfriend, Darren to come and watch it on the big TV here and we had pizza and other yummy food. It was a lot of fun, AND the home team won - much to Noah's chagrin.  Yes, he was cheering for Winnipeg. Not just to be contrary, he has actually been following them and cheering for them all season, and he was very happy they had made it to the Grey Cup.  He had to explain that a lot last week; people thought that he was just doing it to be difficult, lol!  He even has a Blue Bomber that my dad built for him. It is pretty sweet, all blue and gold, with big missile launchers under the wings....
But the best thing that happened this week happened today. Brittany is a 13 yr old girl staying at RMH with her family who has been waiting for a heart transplant for 8 months and in the interim has had a very cool machine called an L-VAD put in place. It is a machine that pumps her blood for her - she has been carrying her "heart" around in a little bag for the last few months... technology is so amazing!  Anyway she received word this afternoon that a heart has become available! She went to the hospital to be prepped for surgery and to have her first round of anti-rejection drugs, etc, today and is just waiting for the heart to arrive.  She goes in at 5 am.  They expect the surgery to be around 9 hrs, so please pray for the surgery to go well and that her body would not reject this heart.  Please pray for her family, who are dealing with a lot of different emotions right now and are feeling a bit strange, as you may imagine.  Please pray for the donor family as well- they must be going through a very tough time right now, though we are thankful they decided to donate their loved one's organs; many lives are being changed as a result of this person's death.  I will let you all know how it turns out.  Her recovery will be about 2 wks in the hospital and then 3 months here at RMH before she can go home to Oliver.
Speaking of going home, originally, we were going to be going home on Friday, but now it looks like we will be staying until Monday evening.  Dr. Davis would like to get started on Interim Maintenance II, since Noah's counts are high enough to get going and we are here anyway.  It begins with an LP and then VinCRIStine and Methotrexate on Monday, then we can go home!  We will be home to see piano recitals, band concerts, and lots of other things, too.  : )
We found out today what the next few months are going to look like in terms of chemo.  Dr. Davis printed off a calendar of December and January and we tried to map out Noah's treatments and when and where they will happen. The next phase of treatment is similar to what he did in the summer, where he had to go in every 14 days. This one he has to have treatment every 10 days in December and January, with 2 rounds of the Erwinia injections - one in each month.  Since Erwinia is the reason we are here right now, Dr. Davis has decided to skip the next round of injections, which would begin on Tuesday, and just do the one later on.  The reason we are debating where to do this is that the drugs he would be getting are ones the chemo nurses administer frequently to adults in Smithers and they would both be done in less than an hour, so it seems sort of silly to travel to Vancouver for that.  He has also had them both many times with no serious adverse reactions besides mouth sores, and now we know how to prevent those.
The GP-O doctors are not all convinced that it is a good idea to treat him anywhere but at Children's, but Dr. Davis is kind of pushing for it for the next treatment in Dec, one in January, and also for some of his treatments during Maintenance, which will begin in April.  Apparently he has been in discussion with Drs. Hart (not in agreement) and Moisey (willing to at least look into the idea) about having treatments in Smithers. Tom and I are of two minds about this. It would be nice to be home for a longer period of time in Dec., but we kinda like the idea of staying where they know Noah and he feels comfortable being treated. And we would only be gone a couple of days at the most.... I don't know what to think... we'll have to see what happens.   On a related note---
Some big news - we have received some funding from the Commmunity Cancer Care Team and HawkAir for flights!!!  I don't know if I wrote about this or not, but yes, they are teaming up to provide flights for us for the next while at least.  A HUGE thank you to those of you who have donated Airmiles to us - it has been such a blessing to have your support.  Now you can save them for a cruise or something...

It is now well past my bedtime.  I must bid you adieu (to yieu and yieu and yieu...) and ask you again to continue to lift us up and also to pray for Brittany and her family and the doctors and .... Thank you Lord that you hear our prayers!